Woo, this is officially the new longest chapter.
Eight full pages of goodness.
It actually feels more like filler to me, but ah well. Some things are explained, some are not. Some of it is just humorous.
Still building up the suspense, you know.
Also... I was kind of disappointed in the lack of comments I got for the last chapter... ;-; It was a big chapter, too... (Yuu-chan, C60533, and Tanachan are my new favorites now.
)
T-T Comments are what keep me going, you know?
I don't want to have to require a certain amount, so please do review?
I work hard on this, and part of it is for me, but the rest of it is so that all of you can enjoy it.
If I have to, I could just stop updating it for good and send what I continue with to only the people that seem to actually care.
But I don't want to do that, either.
I want everybody to be able to read it.
Now I kind of feel like I sound really whiny, so I'm going to shut up.
I'm just an ungrateful writer who should work harder. lol
Enjoy.
[Chapter Twenty-Nine -- Restless Calm]They were back again…
I saw them by accident when I had left Yurina’s house. I was watching the city from the rooftops like I always do… And I heard voices from beneath me. At first, I merely passed it off as nothing more than being one more of those chronic signs that I was slipping farther and farther into insanity… But then I realized that the voices weren’t my own, and so, curious as I was, I decided to investigate.
Stumbling over towards the edge of the brick building I was on top of, I got down on all fours and peered cautiously into the dark alleyway below, able to barely make out the shapes of three figures below. They were talking to each other… or, more like… one of them was talking, one was listening, and the other was standing more towards the entrance to watch out for something.
I couldn’t make out what it was that they were saying, but the sinister tone in that voice had already given me bad feelings about the whole thing. I watched this go on for a few minutes, and then suddenly, the figure that had served as a lookout wandered over to the other two, and soon after left with the person who had the low, manipulative voice. I was kind of concerned about the one they left standing there, but I decided to follow the other two instead.
I’m really kind of on the small side. I don’t mean that I’m short or anything… but I don’t eat a whole lot, and so I’m very skinny. Captain says sometimes that my weight sorta scares her. But at least I haven’t stopped eating all together. I don’t really like food much. It doesn’t seem to have much taste to it anymore…
Anyway, because of this, I was able to maneuver from rooftop to rooftop with ease (it also helped that buildings in this city were so close together) in my pursuit of the strangers, and I almost fell off of one of them when I saw the two figures step back out into the light.
They had changed… they had grown up… and yet, to me, they were completely the same.
Vile, horrible people.
I felt this burning anger flare up inside of me, and yet at the same time my anxiety was brought to new heights and I could feel that flame being smothered by a chilling fear. What were they doing here? Now, after so long? Perhaps it was like the Captain feared, and they had somehow learned that I was still alive… and maybe they had come back to finish the job.
I was starting to feel very sick… The trembling had returned to my body again, and I wondered if I would have some sort of episode right there on the spot. I wasn’t exactly in the appropriate place to start feeling like that…
Nightmarish whispers started flitting through my mind, and I struggled to keep on top of the situation before my body decided to trigger that defense mechanism that would take me somewhere else. But by that point, it was out of my control… I was fading again, and the stronger, more dangerous me was taking my place.
Bad things tended to happen when she showed up…
But there wasn’t any way to stop it now.
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“Mm… Practice gets more and more interesting each day…”
“Well, Momoko-chan… in our defense,
everything has been
interesting ever since you showed up.”
“…Touché.”
Risako, Yurina, Erika (as I finally learned was Umeda’s given name) and I were walking along the city’s sidewalks, enjoying the start of our lunch break after the morning’s practice. So far… this day had gone rather well for me.
Almost as soon as Maasa had left the theatre I started to miss her, but then things began to happen that kept my mind at least slightly preoccupied. Miyabi showed up at about her usual time, and to my surprise, she had brought a guest with her. Saki had tagged along with her to practice, and though I hadn’t expected such a turn of events, I was pleased: both for Saki’s sake and for the fact that perhaps Miyabi would tone down the evil a little bit.
She was in a much better mood, that was for sure. And Saki looked very happy.
Risako joined the three of us about half an hour later, and Erika appeared soon after that, wearing a very confused expression on her face. Yurina wasn’t with her—as she usually was, because with Miyabi’s lack-of-car, Erika had been helping the tall girl get to practice—and when I asked about it, she merely replied that Yurina had called and said not to worry about picking her up, because she would be late.
…That wasn’t like Yurina at all. So naturally, the small group of us worried over it, discussing possible explanations for the most responsible member’s absence.
What we came up with was: 1) She had been possessed by some unearthly creature. 2) She had been hit by a car like Takahashi-san, and had suffered only minor scrapes and bruises… we hoped. 3) The mysterious stranger that we all knew about but had never met had something to do with it.
I personally had been placing my bets on option number three… and my decision had been sealed when Yurina walked in about forty minutes or so late, a starstruck sort of look on her face. It was the same look Risako adopted every time she talked to me about or was around Maiha, and the same look that I suspected I probably got while thinking about Maasa.
She definitely had it bad for
someone…
But since Saki and I were the only such perceptive ones out of the group, and neither of us would stoop to the level of teasing the gentle, good-natured Yurina, no one really seemed to catch on.
Besides that… a much bigger distraction would arrive to take our attention away from Yurina.
Sometime near the middle of our practice, Maiha had slipped in (perhaps that’s where Maasa had learned such an ability… or maybe vice versa), and she watched us (or, rather, she watched Risako) dance from the audience seats for a good amount of time, never once saying a word to anyone. My cousin seemed to be hellbent on
attempting to ignore the intruder, though I was fairly sure that she knew that Maiha was there, and I could have sworn I saw Risako steal glances in the other girl’s direction quite frequently while we worked.
It was pretty amusing, but soon I was immersed in the dancing again.
Once I was exposed to Saki’s godlike dancing skills, I stepped aside for once, and let her help with teaching technique and she even came up with some improvements for the routines that Miyabi and I had put together. Her expertise… would have been very useful if I had known about her talent from the start. I mean, after hearing her story, I was aware that she could perform, but… this had been something else.
I made a mental note to ask her for help with my mother’s dance later on. Maybe she could figure out what it was that I was missing.
But even as I thought about that, I knew that it was probably hopeless… The problem lay somewhere inside of me… until I found it and figured it out, I wasn’t going to make any progress with that solo dance.
And then we had finished. I had lost track of time because I was so focused… Saki and Miyabi slipped out together after assuring the rest of us that they would be back in time for the evening practice, and I couldn’t help but be the slightest bit envious. Maasa was like a cat: she would come and go as she pleased and stay as long as she wanted, with no promise of return…
Perhaps that was one of the reasons I was so drawn to her. She was unpredictable and mysterious, and that intrigued me. …It didn’t hurt that she was dangerously attractive, either, like the stereotypical rebel good girls like myself were supposed to stay away from.
I stopped myself. I was thinking about her more than I thought about anything else lately… I wondered briefly if perhaps she thought about me as often, but then I warned myself that if I wasn’t careful, that I could cross the line into obsession.
…Optimistic-Horny!Momoko didn’t really see that as a bad thing.
But Rational!Momoko hit me in the back of my mental head and I snapped out of my musings back into reality. Risako was staring intensely off into the audience, and at first, I thought maybe she and her sometimes sweetheart were having a contest… but then I followed her line of vision to realize that Maiha wasn’t there at all. She must have slipped in a similar way to how she had arrived… unnoticed.
So, being the genius that I am, I put two and two together and realized that that was the reason for my cousin’s distress. And it annoyed me greatly. I still hadn’t decided whether or not I approved of the flirt, but the way she was acting lately was swinging my opinion more or less towards the latter.
Then again… it really wasn’t any of my business… If worse came to worse I would just beat the little punk up.
Anyways… after all of that, the four of us that remained ended up wandering out of the theatre, and were now walking together in an amicable silence, with the intent to find something to eat. Well, at least, the others had that intention. I told them I had other things to take care of.
So when we reached the end of the block, they waved goodbye to me—Risako was still giving me an unsure look—and I told them I’d catch up later. I waited until they were out of sight before I turned to head towards
my destination.
It was time to play Sherlock Holmes and unravel a bit of the mystery surrounding this city and what was going on. Everything seemed to be loosely connected. The threat… the theatre… the dancers… I had it narrowed down: something had happened a couple of years ago to make someone angry enough to kill the previous owners of the theatre. I assumed that that same someone was back, and they were gonna finish the job this time.
The only clue I had to go on was a scrap of newspaper that I had salvaged from the burnt mass left by the intruder, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I realized that the paper’s date was still intact.
My mission was simple now: I needed to find out exactly what had happened on that day, and trace the events back to the people involved. Perhaps then, I would be able to discover who had been responsible and get them put behind bars before a sequel to the first tragedy was written.
I slowed to a stop in front of the doors to the city’s small, one and only police station.
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Maiha knew that she was going to be in some serious trouble if Maasa happened to wander home anytime soon. But being a reckless optimist, she really didn’t care, and figured that it was worth getting yelled at to spend some quality time with not one, but two very lovely young ladies.
See, Maasa had this rule thing… about how Maiha could freeload as much as she wanted as long as she didn’t bring girls into the house. Well, it actually wasn’t much of a ‘house’. A much more accurate term would have been ‘basement’. It was part of what had once been a pretty large apartment complex, that had been condemned soon after it went bankrupt when people started to gravitate towards the center of the city.
The intent was to tear it and a few of the surrounding buildings down to put new ones in their place, but once some of the less… honorable citizens started to take over that part of town and turned it into a makeshift ‘red light district’, the rebuilding part of the project had been abandoned. The city’s limited police force simply could not control the amount of crime in the area, and so it had become a haven for criminals and people who simply had ill intentions.
Anyways, the duo stumbled upon the basement several years ago, and after working hard to clean it out (Maasa took care of that part) it was a comfortable place to live in (Maiha was good at that part). They had furnished it with various things that they had either stolen or found in the other broken down buildings nearby, and thanks to Maiha’s mental library of things most other people didn’t know, they were able to siphon off electricity from some of their oblivious neighbors.
Miraculously, they also still had running water. But Maiha suspected that a certain incident involving one of the city’s officials and a particularly irate young delinquent had insured them that the facilities wouldn’t be shut off ever again. Apparently they had figured out that it was better to keep the crime in a controlled area of the city rather than forcing them to filter back into the main area where more civilians would be at risk.
Back to the annoying rule thing. It was something that was frequently ignored and broken, since Maasa didn’t really enforce it beyond giving the other girl a long lecture and kicking her out for a night or two. Her ‘probation’ never lasted longer than that, however, because Maasa would always start to feel guilty and would welcome her unrepentant friend back with open arms.
…Which was why Maiha was sitting on the old couch in the underground room with a pair of girls that she had found while wandering about outside. She knew nothing about them other than the fact that they were hot, and that the one that she was currently making out with was particularly skilled at what she was doing.
She probably should have been feeling guilty at that point. But Maiha had learned long ago how to toss away all feelings of remorse about basically everything. It was dangerous, and got her into all sorts of trouble, but in a way, Maasa was her safety net, and so she had never really gotten to experience any of the consequences to her actions.
Just as her hands were starting to wander in an interesting direction, she heard someone enter the room, and knew almost instantly that the other girl was home, and so she quickly slipped out of the compromising position that she happened to be in. Maiha froze as Maasa came into view, but her fear quickly turned into confusion, as she noticed that the taller girl had a distant, distracted look on her paled face, and was surprised when Maasa didn’t even seem to pay her or the visitors an ounce of attention.
This was strange behavior for Maasa, and so (however reluctantly) Maiha ushered the other two females out of the basement-house in order to talk to her best friend.
“What’s wrong with you…? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or somethin’…”
“…Not exactly, but that’s pretty close…”
Maasa’s voice was rougher than normal, like it pained her to say even just one word. This startled Maiha, and for once she was worried…
“Did things go bad with that girl of yours…?”
“No… things are wonderful, actually… Something happened after that. I ran into someone I wasn’t expecting to see.”
“Who? Someone prettier?”
For the first time since she had entered the room, Maasa showed some emotion by flashing Maiha a glare before she slumped down on the couch, rubbing her temples with her fingers in a stressed sort of manner.
“This might sting a bit, but I must inform you that I’m not as shallow as you happen to be when it comes to girls.”
“Ouch,” But the now-grinning Maiha seemed unaffected, and with cat-like ease, she swung her legs over the back of the couch, sliding into place beside the other girl. “So who did you see, then?”
“…Airi… … …Koharu. They’re back in the city.”
If a truck had slammed into Maiha at that moment, she wouldn’t have even noticed. What had just hit her was much, much more forceful than some big semi…
“…Y-you really suck at jokes, Maa-chan… and that one wasn’t funny, so… stop screwing around and tell me what really happened.”
But Maasa wasn’t paying attention anymore. She had her head buried in her hands, and if Maiha’s eyes weren’t playing tricks on her, she could have sworn that the older female was…
trembling. That was when the gravity of this new turn of events
really hit Maiha.
“But why? Why would she come back after being away so long? What could there be left that she wants? People already fucking died because of what they wanted, and as far as she knows, there isn’t anybody left, so why did she come back?”
“She doesn’t want them to perform at the theatre anymore… she’s even already threatened them by telling them that if they don’t leave, something bad will happen…”
Maasa’s voice was muffled, and there was a slight shake to it, but Maiha could make the words out nevertheless. She had a feeling that there was something her friend had left out, but she decided not to push it, considering the other girl’s current emotional state.
“…So even after everything that happened… she still wasn’t satisfied…”
“Apparently not.”
“What are we going to do?”
The older female slowly sat back up straight, running a hand through her hair with a sigh. “I don’t know. There isn’t much that we
can do. Those girls… they won’t leave that place. Which means that they’re all in danger… I have a feeling that Koharu’s taking this time a little bit more seriously.”
“We could find her first and take
her out of the picture…”
“I don’t need anything else to make me feel like more of a murderer than I already am!” Maasa snapped, having gotten to her feet, bristling with anger now. The room was dead silent after that, and Maiha cringed at the smouldering look her best friend was giving her.
Really, really bad direction to go in… I need to learn to think about what I say before I say it…“…You didn’t kill them, Maasa… Koharu and Airi did. It wasn’t your fault.” She tried, using a quiet, cautious voice so as not to further stoke the fires of Maasa’s bear-like anger.
“I’m just as much to blame. You know that.”
“You tried to stop them in the end. That’s what counts. Because of you, they had to hurry, and that might have been the thing that saved Chinami’s life…”
“Because of me, she relives that nightmare constantly, every single day. You can’t tell me that she’s glad she gets to go through what she has to go through…”
“Damnit, Maasa, will you stop blaming yourself for this?! We’ve had this conversation over and over, and it still can’t seem to penetrate your thick skull!”
“That’s because it’s not supposed to! I can’t believe something that isn’t true!”
“You were
manipulated, Maasa. There was no way you could have known how things were going to end up!”
The tall girl growled in frustration, throwing her hands up and walking around the couch towards the exit, grabbing her jacket off of the floor along the way. Maiha quickly got to her feet, tripping as she turned to watch her friend leave.
“Where the hell are you going now?”
“Somewhere, anywhere, I don’t even care at this point.”
“If you’re gonna go and get drunk, I’d rather you not come back here. I don’t like to deal with your sorry ass when you get like that, it’s not attractive.”
“Good thing
you’re not the one I’m trying to impress.”
And with that, Maasa was gone. It could be days before she ever came back… or it could be just an hour or so… She just needed to cool off before she punched someone in the face. Still, Maiha was very apprehensive about the entire situation. Those two… were the last people she ever expected to see in the city… and were also the last people on earth she wanted to see,
period. Maasa was generally a level-headed person, but Maiha had this horrible feeling that she could end up doing something very foolish…
“Momoko-chan… where ever you are right now… I know you can’t hear me, but if by some miracle you do…”
Please… You have to help Maasa. I think you’re the one she’s needed for so long… Even if neither of you ever realize just how much.